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Kerala tourism faces trouble as travellers only trickling in

Kochi: Weather is fantastic in Kerala’s hill resorts, lakes and beaches, and all these locations have a cleaner look too, but what is visibly missing in these places are tourists.
Even though the tourist destinations in the state have been recovered from the damages caused by the floods and its after-effects, the current season of tourism, which started in October and goes till February, is seeing only a trickling in of domestic tourists, affecting tour operators and hoteliers alike.

“Domestic tourists have a perception issue because of the Kerala floods,” said E M Najeeb, chairman of ATE Group and past president of Kerala Travel Mart (KTM). Political and non-political controversies and hartals are also affecting the flow to Kerala, he noted.

The decline in domestic tourists is being reflected in room occupancy rates, says Johny Abraham George, former president of KTM. “Normally, during the October-February period, the occupancy rate will be 90%, but this year it is only 50%,” he said. According to George, the decline in domestic tourists has dragged down the total number of tourists coming to Kerala. “For the October-December period, the overall decline is 30% to 40%,” he said.

Sarath G Nair, managing director of Aluva-based Surya Travels, said the decline in the number of domestic tourists has affected their business and they are surviving mainly by international tourists. “Nearly 75% of the tour operators in Kochi are in deep trouble as they couldn’t survive the current crisis. The best thing the state government could do for the industry is to provide a moratorium on loans which would help them to tide over the troubling times,” he said.

“For those travel operators who depend on group movement, the October-February period is a total washout,” said Levin Thomas, joint-managing partner, Princy Travels.

While Kerala is taking a beat, other states are gaining these domestic travellers. “For people from Maharashtra and Gujarat, they have Kulu, Manali and Kashmir as alternative locations. Those from West Bengal will head to Darjeeling when there is a trouble in Kerala,” Thomas said.

The industry players also said that a package of measures by the government, including moratorium on loans, tax reduction and the aggressive marketing of Kerala’s recovery after the floods will help the industry to come back to normalcy.

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